This volume begins with a table of contents, list of illustrations (plates, maps, graphs, and tables), acknowledgements, list of abbreviations, notes on terms used, and a glossary of terminology pertinent to firearms. The introduction outlines the author’s plan for the body of the book, namely, discussions of royal firearm artillery (chapters 1-5), urban firearm artillery (chapters 6-7), general analysis of firearms (chapter 8), and conclusion. Spencer adds ten appendices, a bibliography, and an index. His inquiries begin in the middle third of the fourteenth century and end with the end of the fifteenth century.
The author first tackles royal guns on land. His chronological overview in chapter one is organized reign by reign--Edward III, Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Edward IV, and Henry VII. Richard III’s intervening and penultimate reign proved too short for separate analysis. During the late fourteenth century, artillery was deployed defensively by royal armies, but its use in siege warfare became more pronounced at the turn of the century. Overall use grew considerably during the fifteenth century, with accelerated growth in the second half-century. In this last-named time period one may observe not only increased deployment of firearm artillery on battlefields and in naval warfare, but also greater diversity in gun types, in metallurgy, and in ammunition. Serpentine-type cannon came into vogue, artillery manufacture became more standardized, and more gunpowder was produced and expended. Kings now viewed artillery possession and use as elements of royal prestige, while individual large guns were named after monarchs, other notable persons, and various royal attributes. Several kings--Henry IV, Edward IV, and Henry VII--evidenced special personal interest in artillery deployment and use.
Chance survival of relatively voluminous records for the royal military expeditions of 1430-32 (in France) and 1497 (in Scotland and, unexpectedly, in England) permits a detailed analysis of gunpowder artillery usage in the second chapter. The first campaign resulted from the need to reconquer recently-lost territory in northern France in order to effectuate the coronation of young Henry VI in his second kingdom. Spencer details the assembling of ordnance and its deployment. The second campaign initially was Henry VII’s response to James IV of Scotland’s support for the pretender Perkin Warbeck, to Scottish raids into Northumberland, and to a formal declaration of war by the Scots. The author again describes in detail the assembling of English ordnance and provides a table of gunners in royal employ sorted by name and date. The envisaged English invasion was largely diverted, however, by the Cornish Revolt that was crushed subsequently in battle by redeployed royal troops at Blackheath outside London, albeit without any artillery fire. Later an English royal force did stage a summer campaign that utilized artillery to destroy several Scottish fortified towers.
The nearly seven-decade-long gap between these two expeditions underscores several developments and contrasts. Artillery types became more specialized and ammunition procurement increased. By the 1490s there had been a marked shift from wrought-iron artillery to bronze guns. Horses supplanted oxen as draft animals for transporting ordnance and artillery became more mobile as more guns were mounted on individual carriages. The manufacture and repair of artillery became more centralized at the Tower of London. The massive growth of the numbers of men employed in ordnance companies represented another trend.
Spencer focuses on royal naval artillery in chapter three. His chronological overview is again structured by specific reigns, as above in chapter one, this time with Richard III included. The author distinguishes between ships hired by the king from merchants and those owned, i.e., commissioned by him. For the former, the crown often supplied the guns. The deployment of artillery on the latter started only under the Lancastrian monarchs Henry IV and Henry V, and experienced a dramatic increase under the Yorkist Edward IV, when they were in fact better armed than the hired merchantmen. On the whole, however, kings continued to rely heavily on merchant ships already privately armed or equipped on royal order. The diversity of naval artillery increased especially in the later 1400s. Henry VII notably retained in his service a modest number of heavily-armed ships. Perhaps the most important technological innovation was the “miche” or gun swivel mount. Evidence is lacking, however, for the frequency of naval artillery use or its effectiveness. Spencer does, however, note in Table 8 the number of armed royal ships, of their deployed artillery, and of their complement of handguns during the period 1337-1500.
Artillery deployed or stored by the English kings at Calais is well documented and provides the focus of chapter four. Edward III conquered the town in 1347 at the outset of the Hundred Years’ War and replaced its inhabitants with English burgesses. Calais and its surrounding district, the Pale, remained under English control for the next 200 years and served as arsenal depot and advanced military base on the Continent. Spencer keeps to his time-frame and investigates the years up to 1500 under four headings: chronological development and number of artillery pieces, various artillery fortifications within the town and its adjacent Pale, artillery deployment or placement and storage, and gunnery personnel (often identified by name). Several trends are evident. The number of guns rose and sank greatly and unevenly as artillery pieces were moved in and out of the enclave in response to perceived external threat. By contrast to the picture posed by Spencer’s analysis of the 1430 and 1497 campaigns in chapter two, the author here notes that over time a higher percentage of the individual artillery pieces in Calais were manufactured of wrought iron rather than cast bronze. (Curiously, Spencer does not attempt to explain this anomaly.) Artillery types became more variegated, with serpentines becoming increasingly popular after 1450. Handguns also proliferated especially after 1470. The development of artillery fortifications paralleled the greater acquisition of guns tailored for deployment in different types of fortifications. Gunners often hailed from the Low Countries, served for longer periods of employment, and added administrative and supervisory tasks to their responsibilities of manufacture and repair.
Besides serving as residences, prisons, and administrative hubs, English castles could fulfil military purposes as defensive positions and offensive bases. But in relative terms they were seldom used in military operations in the years under investigation, and hence were fully garrisoned only in times of crisis. Some castles did, nevertheless, provide storage of ordnance, ammunition, and gunpowder. As in chapters one and three, Spencer presents in the fifth chapter a detailed analysis of castle artillery by individual reign (again skipping Richard III) and sketches several developments. At first, artillery was deployed in castles in the north closer to Scotland and generally in southern England, then in Wales at the turn of the fifteenth century. After 1450 and the end of the Hundred Years’ War, increased provision of artillery in castles along the south English coast was meant to counter possible French raids and even invasion. Gunports and specialized artillery fortifications were developed. When one remembers that some royal castles were located in royal boroughs, the author’s inquiries here segue nicely into the second section of the volume (chapters six and seven) on urban artillery.
During the later middle ages roughly 20% of the English population was urban. The incorporation of English towns by royal charter saw a marked increase. The rights granted burgesses by charter were balanced by their responsibilities to the crown, e.g., for defense, usually including “watch and ward,” that is, the assignment of inhabitants in each neighborhood to provide night watch, care for fortifications, military duty in case of need, and provision of weapons, including artillery. The survival of sufficient urban financial records permits an appraisal of the towns’ possession and use of gunpowder weapons. The trend from 1380 onwards of equipping urban royal castles with artillery--as outlined in the previous chapter--was coincidental with similar gun acquisition by the towns themselves, especially in the heightened defense concerns after 1450 regarding dynastic strife (the War of the Roses) and coastal security. Urban records refer usually indiscriminately to guns and handguns, the only exception being the mention of serpentines, noteworthy perhaps due to their usefulness in coastal towns as anti-ship weapons. Records mentioning the number and deployment of artillery are especially plentiful for Sandwich--Spencer supplies graphs of gun types and distribution derived from an inventory. In general, urban gunports and artillery towers date from the late fourteenth century, and bulwarks from the early fifteenth. Gunners were not continuously employed by towns, but usually only in periods of emergency. Guns for the towns were acquired by the burgesses as a group or as individuals, by capture of armed hostile foreign ships, or by sharing with other towns. At times the kings subsidized urban fortifications and issued artillery for town defense. Such encouragement by the crown, asserts Spencer, should alter the scholarly view that hitherto dated such urban developments in ordnance and fortification later to the sixteenth century.
The official record books of Southampton’s steward, a key urban official, also provide an abundance of evidence mined by Spencer in the seventh chapter to illustrate this town’s experience with artillery. Southampton was a key point on the south coast for the embarkation of armies and naval expeditions. The author presents data over time regarding the number of guns there, the development and deployment of different types of artillery, fortifications dedicated to gun storage and gun placement, and policy decisions regarding the town’s firearms. Starting in the late fourteenth century, guns and gunners were sent by the crown to the castle and town of Southampton; the burgesses began acquiring their own artillery from the early fifteenth century onward. A rapid increase of artillery took place in the middle third of the century, to be followed, surprisingly, by a decline in the final third despite the threat of French seaborne attack.
Part III of the volume contains chapter eight alone, a general analysis of artillery construction, transportation, operation, maintenance, and repair, as well as a discussion of the pertinent ammunition and gunpowder in use. The traditional techniques of smiths, braziers, and bell-makers were utilized to manufacture artillery. The early fifteenth-century shift in cannon manufacture from bronze to cheaper wrought iron occurred coincidental to the drastic price reduction of gunpowder. The process was reversed later in the century--especially in the reign of Henry VII--as bronze guns again came into vogue following further manufacturing innovations. Use of individual gun carriages for general transport and battlefield movement picked up in the mid-fifteenth century. During the late century gunpowder recipes were tailored for specific gun types and new cast iron projectiles were developed. The English built from scratch a domestic industry for making saltpeter (potassium nitrate), an essential component--along with sulphur and charcoal--of gunpowder. While bronze guns were built stronger than wrought iron artillery, they proved much more difficult to repair. Ammunition ranged from gunstones of stone or iron construction to lead shot to other iron projectiles. The number of artillery personnel, draft horses, and gun carts experienced explosive growth. The author even provides a step-by-step description for the loading and firing of both muzzle-loaded and breech-loaded artillery.
In his concluding section Spencer repeats many of the salient points outlined above, as well as some not mentioned previously by this reviewer. Technological advances in English gun manufacture generally came from abroad: bombards in the early 1400s, serpentines in the 1450s, and improved bronze guns after 1485. These changes took place at varying speeds in an accumulative rather than sudden manner. The English were not technologically backward, although sometimes they adopted foreign innovations after a short delay. The deployment of artillery progressed from sieges to castle, urban, naval, and battlefield use. Costs skyrocketed to the extent that a permanent royal ordnance office had to be created. Large artillery pieces became larger while handguns became more numerous. The popularity of serpentine cannons rested on their versatility for sieges, naval combat, and battlefield warfare. While continental rulers could often rely on urban centers to supply ordinance for their use, English kings could not expect the same from their smaller towns facing less danger of siege and attack. In sum, the English experience with artillery was sufficiently different from developments on the continent to merit its uniqueness.
The appendices contain 48 pages of graphs and tables on a variety of topics: gun prices, inventory of firearms at the Tower of London, gunpowder prices, extracts from two years (1430-32) of the accounts of a royal master of ordnance, and a 1497 itinerary of artillery movement from the Tower of London to Woodstock and then back to Blackheath outside the capital. The final and longest appendix (J) describes seventeen categories of guns as regards name variant, terminological description, date range, weight, dimension, ammunition, and the names of individual specimens when available.
Overall, Spencer’s discussion is methodical, meticulous, data-driven, dense in texture, and relentless, occasionally numbingly so. Gripping narrative it is not--nor is it intended to be. Instead, this study has considerable utilitarian value as an essential reference to answer focused inquiries regarding English artillery at specific times and places within a span of 170 years.